- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, in an attempt at naked bribery encouraging commentary, people who make reaction posts have the possibility of seeing their name used in a PHO-style Interlude I plan to eventually do.
Wolf Spider (Worm) (Complete)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Gotta admit, this is the second best take on me I've seen in quite some time.
Top being the time I was giving out candy to some of the nieghborhood kids/
Top being the time I was giving out candy to some of the nieghborhood kids/
Ooh! I like naked bribery! Uh... chapters... things... were... notable...
Okay, seriously, that chapter was mostly just Night being incredibly screwed up and horrifying and distinctly uncomfortable for me to read. (It's an interesting kind of uncomfortable mind you, just not something I should have probably initially read while nauseous from unrelated anxiety at the time.) Mind you, it's someone who was the result of a forceful trigger, and given the canon stating that trying to force a trigger makes it much less likely makes me wonder if the freaking jackasses responsible kept escalating the amount of brainwashing and abuse to try to make it work...
EDIT: My main interest in the naked bribery is morbid curiousity as to what kind of horrible PHO poster ends up with my name according to The Laurent's tastes.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ooh! I like naked bribery! Uh... chapters... things... were... notable...
Okay, seriously, that chapter was mostly just Night being incredibly screwed up and horrifying and distinctly uncomfortable for me to read. (It's an interesting kind of uncomfortable mind you, just not something I should have probably initially read while nauseous from unrelated anxiety at the time.) Mind you, it's someone who was the result of a forceful trigger, and given the canon stating that trying to force a trigger makes it much less likely makes me wonder if the freaking jackasses responsible kept escalating the amount of brainwashing and abuse to try to make it work...
EDIT: My main interest in the naked bribery is morbid curiousity as to what kind of horrible PHO poster ends up with my name according to The Laurent's tastes.
It's not just for this update. It's for all updates in the past and future!
Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Wow, thank you for reminding me about this story in the lesbian/yuri recommendations thread.
Not only is this my favorite portrayal of Rachel in Worm fanfiction, but it's also one of the only seriously written Taylor/Rachel fics I can think of (it might be the only such fanfic), and I believe it may just be my favorite F/F romance in this fandom. I am very glad that you wrote this, and very glad that I read this, on all three fronts.
Major kudos.
Not only is this my favorite portrayal of Rachel in Worm fanfiction, but it's also one of the only seriously written Taylor/Rachel fics I can think of (it might be the only such fanfic), and I believe it may just be my favorite F/F romance in this fandom. I am very glad that you wrote this, and very glad that I read this, on all three fronts.
Major kudos.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
@Indecisive Bob , are you sure you like the first update? 
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Cashing in on the naked bribery!
I still really like how Rachel just rolls with Taylor fairly constant freudian slips. Taylor's this anxious blushing mess a little, and Rachel is just like "yeah" about all of it.
Second favorite part is the background thread of Greg finally finding a person who's less oblivious than he is, romantically. Even though his deck sounds like a scrub deck, I still love this Greg and I think he could be a good lord of the Snack Falcons once he graduates.
I still really like how Rachel just rolls with Taylor fairly constant freudian slips. Taylor's this anxious blushing mess a little, and Rachel is just like "yeah" about all of it.
Second favorite part is the background thread of Greg finally finding a person who's less oblivious than he is, romantically. Even though his deck sounds like a scrub deck, I still love this Greg and I think he could be a good lord of the Snack Falcons once he graduates.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
You know, I'm hoping I manage to sustain that into Bite Arc well enough. I mean, the tension, romantic and sexual, and the awkwardness and back and forthiness, since it's lame when that sort of thing dies off.
- Location
- Maybe?
No it's not! Over in PMAS we've been doing "confident and supportive" for something like twenty or thirty updates, and it's not any less heartening in the slightest.
The point of tension is to be released. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to maintain tension for its own sake.
The point of tension is to be released. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you have to maintain tension for its own sake.
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SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
More oblivious. Most people are less oblivious than Greg.
Sorry, it's a small typo but it completely reverses the meaning of what you're saying.
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- Pronouns
- They/Them
That's not quite the sort of tension I mean? At least, not exclusively?
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
But Sabrina and Mami are in like, the definition of a will they or won't they relationship, and have been for ages? So I'd say that's still a lot of unresolved romantic tension.
- Location
- Maybe?
I believe we're quite firmly committed to "will" at this point.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The playerbase, sure, but the characters haven't admitted it or anything. They just happen to do a lot of dating stuff while denying it internally.
Subrosian_Smithy
endless
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Hers
Sabrina: "I don't want to be too forward with her... I mean, we're dating and stuff, but Mami can't seem to say it out loud... I hope she's not, like, struggling to admit that she's gay or anything..."
Mami: *literally has never heard the word 'homophobia' because a Magical Girl wished for cultural acceptance in the 20th century*
Mami: *was in lesbians with Kyoko*
Mami: *literally had two gay dads before Truck-kun hit their car and relegated them to a tragic backstory*
Mami: *can't admit her feelings only because she's so gay that she gets flustered every time she holds hands with Sabrina or sees Sabrina smile*
zhuull
SB still lying to protect Racists what else is new
This can't be said enough. The constant ratcheting up of tension was one of the main problems of post-Leviathan Worm and that is not a trap you want to fall into.
It's a similar issues to those horrible horrible people that complain about a lack of action in slice-of-life story plots.
- Location
- America
I kind of want to see Bitch past come out and score her some PR points maybe it can be brought up while she finds herself rescuing Dinah for maximum rep. It would be nice to see the undersiders suddenly get a rep as good as the PRT.
I kind of want to see a epic Dinah rescue and maybe somehow Nollea get saved (Hey QA we need you here) Prehaps if Nollea does get saved her powers get downgraded to something less broken like maybe Hax from Working as intended. (Prehaps with her having skitter style control over her clone)
I kind of want to see a epic Dinah rescue and maybe somehow Nollea get saved (Hey QA we need you here) Prehaps if Nollea does get saved her powers get downgraded to something less broken like maybe Hax from Working as intended. (Prehaps with her having skitter style control over her clone)
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Bite 3.1
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Bite 3.1
There were words for what Rachel had done, but as far as I could tell, not a single one of them was murder. Manslaughter was a word, and depending on what the judges said, even involuntary manslaughter or some even lesser offense. Because the question was, that a judge and possibly jury would have to decide, is whether Rachel should have known that her power bulked him up, and that this would be dangerous and would lead to her pet killing three people.
Since capes didn't trigger with a total understanding of their power, or any understanding at all, necessarily, besides instinct, it was something that could be argued.
The only real problem was that juries were biased.
There were more than a few protests at the recent arrest, trial, and Birdcaging of this independent rogue called Canary. For a crime far less than one act of murder, one that even at its worst was aggravated assault (ten years in prison for a regular person), she was going to spend the rest of her life in a prison for supervillains that nobody else can hold.
Cape groups were up in arms, and yet the kicker that made me doubt whether I should trust the PRT to be fair to her?
There were no easy appeals, and almost never a way out--in theory one could open it up, in practice nobody ever did. There wasn't serving your time, because even if you got out, it'd still stick with you. They punished sometimes at random, without any logic. It felt like my time at school, a feeling that made me sick to my stomach. Just reading online was eroding my trust in the PRT and the legal system, in the same way that if you start reading about some of the politicians and their picadillos, you stepped away a few hours later having lost some of your faith in politics.
Still, at least in theory Rachel had a good chance of getting off, because I was also sure that they had forgiven far worse. The real problem was that, as I searched and started imagining defenses in my head, they forgave people by press-ganging them into the Wards.
Rachel wouldn't do well there, and I wanted her with me, and I admit that stories like Canary made me not want to get within even a hundred feet of the PRT or Wards or any of that. It was a common reaction despite attempts at spinning it positively, which made me wonder what the prosecutors or anyone else were thinking.
What new Parahuman would want to turn themselves in for some comparatively minor offense if they might get hauled off to the Birdcage to spend the rest of their life in prison with no chance to appeal their case or get parole.
I bookmarked a few sites that were following the protests blowing up, and filed it away.
It was really that simple, sometimes. The way a symbol could matter to people. I was a hero, and that meant I was a symbol, and what symbols do represents the whole. Every cop who went too far and killed an unarmed person sent waves of doubt and distrust for police running through a community, and it was the same with capes. And the same was true with the justice system.
When a mass-murderer got sent to the Birdcage, everyone, including me, nodded because that's what he deserved. When someone innocent did, then people asked questions. It was just human nature, and apparently there had been a lot of lawyers just looking for a good, sympathetic case to try to run things up to the Supreme Court, which had declined time and again to address the Birdcage.
...all of this was interesting, but what really mattered is that if Bitch went hero, people could probably buy it, especially if there was a counter to any claim that she was a murderer. It wasn't as if she didn't already have fans. In fact, her fanbase seemed to be growing.
They paid a lot of attention, and it felt bizarre and almost wrong to go looking online for threads about how cool Bitch was, and how she wasn't afraid of anyone, or something about some meme or another, and know that there was an actual woman behind it.
It was especially awkward as I couldn't really be myself on any of these weird sites, and I definitely couldn't hint at the fact that I'd had intercourse with her.
But she had people who would stick with her, at least as a villain. So I set out bait, a question: is she really a villain?
See what they said. I wanted people to buy it if I could convince her to 'sell' it.
I wondered if I was putting the cart before the horse, because there was a chance that she wouldn't care enough to even think about going hero, or that she'd get offended at the idea that, just because we had sex, I had any special claim on her.
The last thing I wanted to do was lose her by making silly assumptions, and I had the time I needed to step carefully. And plan even more carefully.
********
It felt bizarre, and I almost wanted to stop myself. It felt too tea cozy, too much like I was going to cook a meal for her wearing an apron. Making a costume for Rachel felt like it was something oddly intimate in a way I wouldn't have thought of before I'd seen the body that was going to fit into the costume.
I still needed her measurements, because I hadn't exactly been looking for the purposes of tailoring, but if I could make my own costume with spider silk and clever bugs, then I could do the same for Rachel. It'd protect her, and keep her safe, and the idea of her wearing something that I'd made…
There was a warm, uncomfortable, and yet welcome feeling in my stomach, thinking about it like that. It was something possessive and a little primal, like a way of marking my territory.
I even knew it, and yet I couldn't help but want to do it anyways. It was selfish, but then why pretend I wasn't being selfish?
The mask couldn't be improved upon, by which I meant that a mask made with silk wouldn't make sense, because of course, Bitch's mask was cheap as heck. But at the same time, there was no simple replacement. A more full mask could make sense, made of metal or otherwise protective, but if some brute slammed their fist into her head, metal could warp and break, and a shard of metal or flexiglass or the like going into her could be fatal in the way a glancing blow by a Brute might not be.
I could, of course, provide silk linings for it, though, or perhaps think about a simple mask that was a little more realistic. I wasn't quite sure there, but I made silk anyways.
There were all sorts of things that could be made with silk, and some of them made me blush more or less. For instance, spider silk underwear was apparently pretty useful. Not merely for being silk, but it didn't melt in extreme heat in the same way other underwear might, and wounds would be clean because of how fine and delicate the spider silk was, if someone needed to do field surgery or the like.
It was a last resort, yes, and the thought of making underwear for her had me drifting off into silly fantasies, mixed with drifting off into seeing how she'd react and being afraid that she'd get angry at it.
Other things were simpler, like a spider silk undershirt, or layers to it. And I had a few other ideas, all of which meant I was gathering an absurdly large number of spiders together and googling sewing and other techniques as often as I could.
It was fine control that I was used to, but this time I tried to see through the bug's eyes in a way I could use, rather than a confused mess. It was a work in progress, especially compared to the way that I was beginning to be able to drag together sound.
I couldn't quite translate it into something distinguishable, but I was starting to be able to tell words apart. It was pretty simple. Just the ability to tell sounds that were words apart from, say, coughs or incoherent yells, and the knowledge that where there was a slight pause, that was where a word was. A very, very slight pause, in many cases.
It wasn't all that important yet, but when I managed to listen in on conversations, then my other work would be even more effective.
For I was hunting the Merchants now, while paying attention to the news. I just needed a photo and one part of it was done, and then I had to talk to Rachel, see what the Undersiders were going to do.
*******
The hunt took many forms. I tried to bug any of the students at school who I knew were supposed to be running with the Merchants. And since I was there to monitor myself (I'd joined every single gang, sometimes a dozen times, often with what they call a 'fuck in' if one believes the rumors) I thought I had it covered. I wasn't going to be able to listen in on them, but I could get occasional flashes of things while I sat doing work in class that seemed encouraging.
Sure, that white powder in locker #342 might just be someone's baking soda volcano experiment in the making, but let me say that I was skeptical.
As well, there was a sense of smell to deal with. I needed more experience, but I bet given time I could figure out just what pot smells like. Not that it was that big of a deal, but I knew a number of Merchants smoked marijuana, and certainly if you wanted to be caught with something at school, a cigarette was better than a dime bag.
And then each night out I could, I just tracked some of them, and began to build up a map. I knew I was using the same technique, but really the Merchants weren't all that different than the E88 in some ways.
Both of them sold drugs and killed people, and the E88 was worse only because it was ideological.
One advantage with the Merchants was that, even more than the E88, they were the kind of people who hang around buildings with bugs in them. It was impossible for them to be secure. I could imagine the E88 being able to have a few 'clean meeting' places where they could hide out if they were terrified of me, and where even a single bug meant I was watching them.
The Merchants? They just accepted bugs as a feature of any room they hid out in, and that meant that there was basically nothing I couldn't hear, if only I figured out just how to hear everything.
It was certainly the aspect of my power that was getting the most use, and compared to the fruitless patrols that I was increasingly sure were pointless, it was certainly progress, even if it meant not being seen. I was afraid that people would forget me, or assume that if I wasn't seen, I was planning a bank heist.
From what I could tell, it was the villains who got to pick and choose their battles, until or unless the heroes could find their hideouts. So you heard a lot more about this or that villain raiding each other or robbing a store then you did about heroes acting that way, who you mostly saw pictures of patrolling.
But by Friday, after three days of patrolling up and down when I wasn't tracking down leads, I was starting to get the feeling that this was some kind of trick. Some time wasting scheme so that heroes couldn't do anything useful.
Sure, PR existed and whatever, but there had to be a better way than this. But I kept at least a little of it up in case it was important, but mostly I focused on the Merchants.
This map looked a little like a web made by a spider that had been fed drugs. Clumps here and there, and long trails of crackhouses and safehouses that they'd clearly mostly forgotten about, stretching farther and wider than the E88, but existing in the margins.
And it was clear to me now that they had some sort of Tinker messing with their product, making it stronger, more powerful. I'd felt said person, and I'd felt that Lisa had gone down and talked to him. That was enough evidence that I should confront her, though I wasn't sure if I could stand the kinds of lies and manipulations she'd probably pull out.
I liked her, but that didn't mean she wasn't someone a little like Emma, someone who was very handy with making other people do things.
Still, I should at least confront her… but not yet. I wanted to enjoy things.
Even school was going alright. The trio hadn't suddenly grown a conscience, they weren't actually non-horrible people now, but I could cope with it a little better. Their words still hurt, though, and yet when they spread a rumor that was true, I could almost scoff at it. Almost.
I wasn't exactly regretting my choices yet, and things with Rachel seemed both normal and not, now. Now when I saw her look at me, I imagined I saw the interest she'd had in me. And when she looked, I felt like there might be actually something that she was looking at. Something worth looking at.
It was an addictive sort of feeling, in a way.
********
I stood against the wall of the alley, holding out the cell-phone. It was a very cruddy camera, in a model that was barely new enough for it, but it'd do. I stood back a little, holding it out, and then snapped a photo of my visage. My mask didn't show anything of my face, but it showed my costume, and that was pretty hard to fake, at least for no reason at all. Once I posted this, that was proof that I was a real, registered cape.
That I was who I said I was, and that I was a hero.
So, that was one thing out of the way.
*******
Friday evening:
"Hey, Rachel," I said, as she was looking over a book I'd gotten her. It was part of the idea to help her read a little better, though she was reluctant to admit mistakes. I'd noticed that, or at least, she didn't like admitting how many words tripped her up.
"Yes?"
"If I made clothes for you, would you wear them?" I asked, trying to phrase it innocently.
"What?" she asked, sounding confused.
"I made my own costume, did you know that?"
"No," Rachel admitted.
"With spider silk. It's actually pretty strong. It's supposed to be able to at least make bullets hurt less," I said. "I could make you a jacket like that, or under-armor. Or perhaps padding to keep from chafing while you're riding Brutus or one of the other dogs."
"Oh?" she asked, and I took the neutral tone as an encouragement to go on.
"I'm not exactly a fashionista, but I could also… make other garments."
"Other garments? Do you want me in some kinda dress or something?" she asked, eyes narrowed, as if she had figured out my grand and evil plot.
Or as if she was going to try to find a way to avoid ever wearing a dress.
To be fair, I couldn't imagine Rachel in a dress. It just didn't fit. It didn't compute, and if I thought about it too long, my brain would probably shut down. Besides, she looked just fine the way she dressed now. More than fine, actually.
"N-no. I meant, well. You know they're talking about using them for soldiers, so it's not weird."
"Using what?"
"Um. Spider silk underwear."
Rachel let out a laugh, and then looked at me for a moment, her hand reaching out to brush against my shoulder. "Why?"
"Well, it's harder to tear, and stronger and more durable. Plus, it doesn't melt as easily, and if there's a wound there, the silk threads don't get caught in the wound," I said.
Rachel was just staring at me. Then she nodded, "Sure."
"Really?"
"Why not?" she asked, rather firmly. "If they're not frilly and shit."
"They won't be. I'm not even sure how I could do frills, and you don't seem like the kind of person that likes frills. On you, or anyone else."
"Yeah," Rachel said, and she leaned in and looked like she was about to kiss me.
"I'm still learning these things," I admitted. "About what you like and don't like."
She shrugged. "Bodies," she said, as if it were that simple. But then again, she'd been the one to make the first move, and without her words, I wouldn't have realized things quite so quickly, so maybe it was that simple. It wasn't as if I was attached to the deep aesthetic meaning of clothes, so if she saw them just as something to cover the body, that made sense.
"So, I'd need to measure you," I admitted. "So I knew how to fit it. But…"
I didn't know how to say that I didn't know how I'd stand seeing her in clothes that I made, and that this was a good thing, the inability to stand the image. I definitely didn't know how to explain it without coming off as creepy and weird.
"I get it." Rachel frowned, looking at me, "I think?"
"So, I brought a tape measure if you wanted to--"
She leaned in, and I saw the kiss coming, and kissed her back.
********
We had sex for a second time. I enjoyed it.
We didn't actually wind up measuring her on Friday, actually.
I didn't really mind.
A part of me whispered that this wasn't right, that this was too hasty and, just as importantly, that I shouldn't already be ready for more. That it wasn't normal to feel desire this strong and this soon after 'fulfilling' it. But I ignored it, and was glad of it.
Another part of me, far more persuasive, thought something as I lay, my body entwined in hers, my head on her shoulder. I couldn't stay for long, perhaps thirty or forty minutes at most like this, and even then I'm sure that Dad would freak out.
I thought that I'd love to sleep with her. Warmth against warmth, just laying there, exhausted and tuckered out.
Heck, sex wasn't even needed. Just imagining… but it wasn't something that could be done, not really. Not when I had to be home at some point in time. But when I stared up at the makeshift roof, I thought that this was a bad thing.
I wanted to change it.
I knew I would do this again, and again and again. I wanted to date her, to be her girlfriend, which of course also meant that she was my girlfriend too.
I just needed to figure out how to do it.
That was all.
*******
On Saturday, I got a call from Lisa, early in the morning as I was headed for Rachel's.
I wasn't sure about answering it, but I decided on it after a long moment of hesitation. So I slowed down, my heart racing from the jogging I'd done, and answered. "Hello?"
"Hey, Taylor, how's it going?"
"Fine. What is it you want?" I asked.
"Well, I want to hang out with you sometime, maybe go shopping."
"Clothes are just things you wear," I said, "but sure."
"Ah," Lisa said, and I had no idea what the 'ah' was for, and it annoyed me a little. I wanted to be at Rachel's right now. "So, it went well?"
"Oh. You can tell that over the phone?"
"A little, yeah," Lisa said. "Anyways, what I had to give you was pretty simple. Taking down those E88 people is a big deal, and I thought I'd buy you a smart phone, just a cheap one, so that you could do some of the tracking in the field if you decided to go after anyone else."
I frowned. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about it. Anything she bought was to some extent blood money, but then, so was what Rachel got, even if it was just food. So maybe I could take it without it being tainted?
But I wanted to press something else while I was here, and maybe it'd make her think twice about thinking she could buy me. I let out a breath, and said, "Go after anyone else? Except the Merchants, right?"
"What?"
"I saw you moving down to talk to someone that was probably a Merchant, back during our first fight together. Don't deny it. I bet it's the new chemical or drug Tinker that's putting out that new product," I said. My voice was a little bit of a growl, but now that I was actually thinking about it, I was even more frustrated than I thought I'd be.
"Oh. Ah, yes, bugs. I was warning them to get away. You can go after the Merchants if you want, I was just providing a warning…"
"And they didn't attack you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes even though she couldn't see it. "I'm not sure if that actually makes sense. Merchants are violent, and you just showed up out of nowhere."
"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I was going through a tunnel and was breaking up," Lisa said, as if she was trying to sound more lighthearted than she was.
"No. I wouldn't," I said.
"Okay, well, I have a contact in the Merchants. Someone who knows the Tinker. I used that to contact him, make sure he was on the same page. He's also someone I could use against them later on. You have to do that: have contacts, have allies and people you can rely on."
I found myself smiling in the sort of way Rachel might smile. "Ah. So, you're an evil mastermind in the making? That's supposed to make me trust you?"
"People have to survive."
"That's what you're doing it for? To survive?" I asked. "Rachel, she does shit for survival. I can tell it. You? You seem to enjoy it."
"You have to eat to live, but you can enjoy food," Lisa said, her words a little quieter, as if she were withdrawing away from the conversation.
I wanted to press on further, because if the past few weeks had taught me anything, it was that you couldn't let an enemy get up, and if Lisa was perhaps a friend, she was also a potential enemy.
Maybe even more than potential.
So. "That's not the same at all. Everyone needs food, but you're…"
"What? We've done a few robberies, but not recently. Recently we've been just fighting Nazis."
"How? How are you getting money, if not through robbery," I said.
"The E88 has enemies, and we have been taking a little of what the E88 drops."
"Drugs?"
"No. Arachne, it's just money. Rachel's taking her cut too. We do jobs, we get money, and we don't have to be your enemy. I know that some of us aren't, and even Regent isn't as bad as he came off…"
"If you say so," I said, "...then I'll hear."
Lisa didn't ask the obvious question, of whether or not I'd listen, and she sighed. "Do you still want the phone? And we should hang out. Because I want to…"
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing. I just don't want to see you going it alone without any advice. I know a lot that could be helpful if you were going to be an independent hero."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Want to go shopping with me on Sunday? We can go somewhere other than the mall. Like the boardwalk."
"You know what, yes. And then I can ask you more about this… or what you're willing to share," I said.
"Ah. Well, fair enough," Lisa said, and I could imagine her shrugging. She clearly thought it was worth it, or perhaps that I'd not follow up.
But I definitely intended to.
********
Sometimes I didn't know what to expect when I went to Rachel's. I'd thought that today would involve video games, and it did. And I was working with Rachel on the reading, and I finally found a few poems she liked, if only because they were short.
And there were other interests I could inculcate in her, given time. Movies and music and the like. If I had a smart-phone, I could even just show some off to her without having to buy anything, though I had no idea what her tastes were in that respect. I also didn't know how to learn all of that kind of thing about her without just asking.
...so maybe I should just ask.
But two things distracted me from this, at least for a little while.
First was a show of trust that I found a little shocking. After we'd been messing around for a while, and of course after I'd helped her with the dogs, she said, "Hey, Taylor."
Honestly by this point helping out with the dogs felt less like a task and more something that was part of the routine. I enjoyed it, and I felt an odd sense of ownership over them. I knew their names, I knew what they acted like when they were angry and happy and sick. I certainly didn't know them as well as Rachel did, but that was a minor detail compared to how I was used to the smell of dogs, how I knew their behavior, and how I had favorites. Milk and Bullet, for instance.
"What?" I asked, kneeling next to Milk, whose belly I was rubbing.
"Gotta show you something."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Jus' follow me."
I did, not sure what I was seeing. In the back room, there was all of the normal stuff, though I saw that she had two or three dummies now. Were they for training?
But Rachel kept on walking and moved towards a tile in the corner, and then knelt down and pulled it up.
I blinked, surprised, but scooted closer, and then saw a box, amid the dirt. Actually, there were bugs down here, and I'd felt them, but I hadn't put two and two together, hadn't controlled the worms to crawl over this large, orange tackle-box.
She unlatched it and opened it up.
Inside there was money. A lot of money, by my standards. It was all in cash, except for a few coins, here and there. Twenties, tens, and hundreds all mixed together in a slurry. "What?" I asked.
"Casino job. And other shit," Rachel said.
"How much is in there?" I asked, staring at it, shocked.
"Last time I counted, about… six thousand or something?" Rachel frowned, looking at me, but I didn't see that same suspicion before. "I might have counted some of it twice."
Before, she'd been afraid I'd make fun of her for that, and of course, before she didn't trust me enough to show me where she kept her stash.
"Oh, well, I could help you count it, if you wanted."
"Thanks," Rachel said.
"Though, why did you show me this?"
"In case you ever need money," Rachel said.
I blushed. It was just something about how simply she said it.
"Just write the amount on a little piece of paper and leave it, and shit. Just so that I know," Rachel said with a shrug.
Oh, so she wasn't that crazy. She was still going to keep track of it, but the offer was both generous and also one I wasn't sure I could take her up on. Besides it feeling weird, the idea of relying on her for money, even though I was just about broke by this point, there was the fact that it was all dirty money.
Even if the Casino was a front, it was still all illegal. But that was a lot of money down there.
"Got a whole bunch more coming. Don't spend it on nothing, so if you need a little…"
"A bunch more coming?"
"Lisa said," Rachel said, but in a way that told me that if Lisa said the sky was blue, Rachel would go out and check.
"Well, I can ask her about it, maybe," I said, with a shrug. "Thanks, though! I mean, the trust and all…"
"There's something else."
"Oh?"
*******
I stared at the dummy, and then at Brutus.
"You gotta tell them," Rachel said. "Give them an order like you mean it. Then you praise them when they do what you want."
"I…" I glanced between the dummy and Brutus, who was currently almost up to my shoulder. "Brutus! Hurt!"
The dog sprung forward and batted the dummy with his shoulder, almost delicately. It half flew across the room, and he pounced. I noticed that he wasn't biting, just pawing hard and pushing.
"Brutus!" I said, "Hurt super!"
It was a command she had, for when she wanted to hurt someone who didn't have to be gone easy on, the way Brutus was now when he was that big.
Brutus bit down and started to shake his head back and forth. Of course, sometimes he 'hurt super' even when he wasn't ordered to, but still.
I stared as stuffing flew out.
"Now do it," Rachel said, crossing her arms.
"I…"
She was looking at me with an intense look that made my knees weak. I was sweating. I shouldn't care, but--
But I shouldn't care. I did worse with my bugs, and the time might come when I had to do it.
And she wanted me to be able to do this. She was trusting me with being able to give her own dogs orders and rewards. I knew that this was a big thing for her.
So I said, loud and clear, "Brutus, kill."
There was almost nothing left of the dummy once Brutus was done with it, though I can't imagine it tasted good. But he was an obedient dog, no traitor at all, and so he did what he was told, and then returned to me to lick me with his huge, monster-dog tongue and wag his shiny, horrible looking tail.
It made it hard not to smile when I saw all of that, even though I was training myself to express myself in other ways around her.
"Hey, Rachel. Could I grab a twenty and go get us some lunch?" I asked.
"Sure. Why you asking?"
"Well, just wanted to talk to you, get to know you a little more. And I figured we could have lunch. Maybe in for now, but out eventually."
There was a word for going to lunch with someone you were having sex with. A date. I wasn't going to say it outright, since I knew she didn't like me like that, not really. If she did, she'd be blunt. "Wanna date" seemed something she'd say, or at least I couldn't see why she wouldn't say that.
But if I eased her into it…
It was an idea. I could be underhanded if I wanted to. And if it didn't work out, I wouldn't be putting myself at any risk. Because I didn't actively state anything, she wouldn't be able to actively shoot me down.
We could continue to have sex.
It was probably a sign that something was wrong with me, but if that's all it was, even if there was no hope of it being more… I'd take it.
"Why not," Rachel said.
******
We ate sandwiches from a shop a little down the way, still hot. She seemed to be more careful with her food now than before, but when she did get something on her lips, it made me want to wipe it off.
I kept on watching her the whole time. I knew that this had to die down, eventually, the awareness of one another in this kind of way. Or else how did couples do anything? If they saw someone's lips and their mind dragged them back to the things those lips had done, the kisses and the nibbles.
Was licking someone's face something that only happened in movies? Would she think it was gross? Why was I thinking about it so much.
"So, what do you wanna know?"
"What movies do you like? Music?"
"Uh," Rachel said, leaning back. "Like Rock, I guess? Or…"
She frowned a little. "Quiet shit. Relaxing."
"Ah," I said. "Well, I'm more of a pop sort of person. I could find some music on my phone, see what we like, on top of the reading. I have a few ideas about the kinds of things you'd like. And movies?"
"Action movies, maybe?" she asked, a little skeptically.
If she thought this was a little shallow, it was, but better to be slightly shallow than to not know as much about her as I could. That was how you forged relationships, or at least how I saw them forged.
"So, I like green and I jog, I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, and video games as you know, but my Mom got me into foreign films and books that are a little different from that," I said. "If you ever wanted to watch a movie or something, we could. Together, I mean. Nobody's going to check or notice that you're Bitch."
"Maybe," she said, and then after a moment her lips pursed slightly, as if now she was actually considering it. "Why not?"
"Good, good," I said. "So, I know you like Greek, and a lot of meat, but what about other things? Anything else you wanna share?"
"Well, uh, I do the weightlifting," Rachel said, sounding like she was flailing to find something to say.
Which was a new thing, or rather, it was a new thing that I could see it. From the look on her face, she did want to engage with me in this, but she didn't really know how.
"Oh? Is that just to get enough strength to handle the dogs?"
Rachel hesitated, and then with what I understood was a mental shrug, she said, "Uh… not just."
"Not just?" I asked.
Oh. My. God. (Yes, I knew it made me sound like a valley girl.)
Rachel was blushing a bit. "Also, just. Like how…"
She gestured vaguely.
For the first time I'd seen, she was actually hesitating.
"How it looks? Well so do I," I admitted, reaching a hand out to feel her muscles. I liked that, I liked the hardness of them, I just… well. It wasn't something I would have expected, considering the few past crushes I could point to as far as other women went, but there it was.
Rachel looked both pleased and like she might just sink into the floor, while I thought about that. So, she lifted weights because she liked how it looked? Or maybe because she thought others would like how it looked? She really didn't need it, and at most it probably just slightly increased her definition or whatnot, since hauling around those dogs would probably have done, and probably had done, most of the work.
It was something personal, in a way. I wondered, she said she was gay, had she been… I don't know.
I did remember that she hadn't had weights here, and then she'd brought them in from her apartment? So, what? Had she wanted them close at hand?
Right after she met me.
"Oh," Rachel said.
"Yeah. I mean, you're not…" I trailed off, since I realized that what I was saying was a little too close. I was going to say she wasn't the sort to have doubts. "Anyways, so, movies, music, there's plenty we could do together."
Rachel nodded. "What else you wanna know?"
"Oh! Your measurements. I'll need them for the clothes I'm making. It'll be a few days, or more, until they're done, though," I said.
"Dunno," Rachel said.
"Huh?"
"Don't know them. I'm not exactly stepping on a scale every day or any of that shit," Rachel said, and that was the aggression and don't-care attitude I'd expected. It was odd, to see her at once so cavalier about how she looked, and yet apparently uncertain enough that she lifted weights for no real reason at all. Or at least, it didn't help her any, if her goal was just to be strong enough to handle her dogs.
It was an odd contrast, a little like how she didn't care about clothes, yet she'd been careful with them before. Sort of.
I wondered what she liked about me. I no longer doubted that she was attracted to me, but there was the question of details, of specifics, of all sorts of other things.
"Well, then I'll just have to measure you," I said, with a shrug. "Shouldn't take too long."
I had looked up how to do so, in case she didn't know, though now it felt a little weird.
Still, I got out my measuring tape and got to work. A few more days and the clothes would be done.
*******
Later that day, I returned home, having taken a bit longer than expected to get back. Probably something to do with the makeout session we'd had. I'd never really gotten how other girls were quite so boy crazy, or person crazy in general, but I got it now.
I opened the door and glanced at the table in the living room. Dad was sitting and watching television, but what I noticed most of all was that, unlike normally, there were two empty beer cars sitting on the table.
"Taylor," Dad said, his voice firm, as if he were working his way up to saying something.
"Yes?" I asked, not asking how he knew I was there. The TV was blaring, but he must have been listening for me.
"...Nothing, nevermind."
"Okay then," I said, and I realized it for what it was, realized it for the same thing that had held me back.
Perhaps I'd been my father's daughter when I'd held back out of fear, out of cowardice, out of worry about what a single wrong word could do to something I valued so much, her friendship.
"I'll be upstairs in my room," I said.
Maybe I didn't want to have this conversation either.
******
A/N: And on that cheery note, we finish the first update of the new whatnot!
Edit: Thanks to @NemoMarx.
There were words for what Rachel had done, but as far as I could tell, not a single one of them was murder. Manslaughter was a word, and depending on what the judges said, even involuntary manslaughter or some even lesser offense. Because the question was, that a judge and possibly jury would have to decide, is whether Rachel should have known that her power bulked him up, and that this would be dangerous and would lead to her pet killing three people.
Since capes didn't trigger with a total understanding of their power, or any understanding at all, necessarily, besides instinct, it was something that could be argued.
The only real problem was that juries were biased.
There were more than a few protests at the recent arrest, trial, and Birdcaging of this independent rogue called Canary. For a crime far less than one act of murder, one that even at its worst was aggravated assault (ten years in prison for a regular person), she was going to spend the rest of her life in a prison for supervillains that nobody else can hold.
Cape groups were up in arms, and yet the kicker that made me doubt whether I should trust the PRT to be fair to her?
There were no easy appeals, and almost never a way out--in theory one could open it up, in practice nobody ever did. There wasn't serving your time, because even if you got out, it'd still stick with you. They punished sometimes at random, without any logic. It felt like my time at school, a feeling that made me sick to my stomach. Just reading online was eroding my trust in the PRT and the legal system, in the same way that if you start reading about some of the politicians and their picadillos, you stepped away a few hours later having lost some of your faith in politics.
Still, at least in theory Rachel had a good chance of getting off, because I was also sure that they had forgiven far worse. The real problem was that, as I searched and started imagining defenses in my head, they forgave people by press-ganging them into the Wards.
Rachel wouldn't do well there, and I wanted her with me, and I admit that stories like Canary made me not want to get within even a hundred feet of the PRT or Wards or any of that. It was a common reaction despite attempts at spinning it positively, which made me wonder what the prosecutors or anyone else were thinking.
What new Parahuman would want to turn themselves in for some comparatively minor offense if they might get hauled off to the Birdcage to spend the rest of their life in prison with no chance to appeal their case or get parole.
I bookmarked a few sites that were following the protests blowing up, and filed it away.
It was really that simple, sometimes. The way a symbol could matter to people. I was a hero, and that meant I was a symbol, and what symbols do represents the whole. Every cop who went too far and killed an unarmed person sent waves of doubt and distrust for police running through a community, and it was the same with capes. And the same was true with the justice system.
When a mass-murderer got sent to the Birdcage, everyone, including me, nodded because that's what he deserved. When someone innocent did, then people asked questions. It was just human nature, and apparently there had been a lot of lawyers just looking for a good, sympathetic case to try to run things up to the Supreme Court, which had declined time and again to address the Birdcage.
...all of this was interesting, but what really mattered is that if Bitch went hero, people could probably buy it, especially if there was a counter to any claim that she was a murderer. It wasn't as if she didn't already have fans. In fact, her fanbase seemed to be growing.
They paid a lot of attention, and it felt bizarre and almost wrong to go looking online for threads about how cool Bitch was, and how she wasn't afraid of anyone, or something about some meme or another, and know that there was an actual woman behind it.
It was especially awkward as I couldn't really be myself on any of these weird sites, and I definitely couldn't hint at the fact that I'd had intercourse with her.
But she had people who would stick with her, at least as a villain. So I set out bait, a question: is she really a villain?
See what they said. I wanted people to buy it if I could convince her to 'sell' it.
I wondered if I was putting the cart before the horse, because there was a chance that she wouldn't care enough to even think about going hero, or that she'd get offended at the idea that, just because we had sex, I had any special claim on her.
The last thing I wanted to do was lose her by making silly assumptions, and I had the time I needed to step carefully. And plan even more carefully.
********
It felt bizarre, and I almost wanted to stop myself. It felt too tea cozy, too much like I was going to cook a meal for her wearing an apron. Making a costume for Rachel felt like it was something oddly intimate in a way I wouldn't have thought of before I'd seen the body that was going to fit into the costume.
I still needed her measurements, because I hadn't exactly been looking for the purposes of tailoring, but if I could make my own costume with spider silk and clever bugs, then I could do the same for Rachel. It'd protect her, and keep her safe, and the idea of her wearing something that I'd made…
There was a warm, uncomfortable, and yet welcome feeling in my stomach, thinking about it like that. It was something possessive and a little primal, like a way of marking my territory.
I even knew it, and yet I couldn't help but want to do it anyways. It was selfish, but then why pretend I wasn't being selfish?
The mask couldn't be improved upon, by which I meant that a mask made with silk wouldn't make sense, because of course, Bitch's mask was cheap as heck. But at the same time, there was no simple replacement. A more full mask could make sense, made of metal or otherwise protective, but if some brute slammed their fist into her head, metal could warp and break, and a shard of metal or flexiglass or the like going into her could be fatal in the way a glancing blow by a Brute might not be.
I could, of course, provide silk linings for it, though, or perhaps think about a simple mask that was a little more realistic. I wasn't quite sure there, but I made silk anyways.
There were all sorts of things that could be made with silk, and some of them made me blush more or less. For instance, spider silk underwear was apparently pretty useful. Not merely for being silk, but it didn't melt in extreme heat in the same way other underwear might, and wounds would be clean because of how fine and delicate the spider silk was, if someone needed to do field surgery or the like.
It was a last resort, yes, and the thought of making underwear for her had me drifting off into silly fantasies, mixed with drifting off into seeing how she'd react and being afraid that she'd get angry at it.
Other things were simpler, like a spider silk undershirt, or layers to it. And I had a few other ideas, all of which meant I was gathering an absurdly large number of spiders together and googling sewing and other techniques as often as I could.
It was fine control that I was used to, but this time I tried to see through the bug's eyes in a way I could use, rather than a confused mess. It was a work in progress, especially compared to the way that I was beginning to be able to drag together sound.
I couldn't quite translate it into something distinguishable, but I was starting to be able to tell words apart. It was pretty simple. Just the ability to tell sounds that were words apart from, say, coughs or incoherent yells, and the knowledge that where there was a slight pause, that was where a word was. A very, very slight pause, in many cases.
It wasn't all that important yet, but when I managed to listen in on conversations, then my other work would be even more effective.
For I was hunting the Merchants now, while paying attention to the news. I just needed a photo and one part of it was done, and then I had to talk to Rachel, see what the Undersiders were going to do.
*******
The hunt took many forms. I tried to bug any of the students at school who I knew were supposed to be running with the Merchants. And since I was there to monitor myself (I'd joined every single gang, sometimes a dozen times, often with what they call a 'fuck in' if one believes the rumors) I thought I had it covered. I wasn't going to be able to listen in on them, but I could get occasional flashes of things while I sat doing work in class that seemed encouraging.
Sure, that white powder in locker #342 might just be someone's baking soda volcano experiment in the making, but let me say that I was skeptical.
As well, there was a sense of smell to deal with. I needed more experience, but I bet given time I could figure out just what pot smells like. Not that it was that big of a deal, but I knew a number of Merchants smoked marijuana, and certainly if you wanted to be caught with something at school, a cigarette was better than a dime bag.
And then each night out I could, I just tracked some of them, and began to build up a map. I knew I was using the same technique, but really the Merchants weren't all that different than the E88 in some ways.
Both of them sold drugs and killed people, and the E88 was worse only because it was ideological.
One advantage with the Merchants was that, even more than the E88, they were the kind of people who hang around buildings with bugs in them. It was impossible for them to be secure. I could imagine the E88 being able to have a few 'clean meeting' places where they could hide out if they were terrified of me, and where even a single bug meant I was watching them.
The Merchants? They just accepted bugs as a feature of any room they hid out in, and that meant that there was basically nothing I couldn't hear, if only I figured out just how to hear everything.
It was certainly the aspect of my power that was getting the most use, and compared to the fruitless patrols that I was increasingly sure were pointless, it was certainly progress, even if it meant not being seen. I was afraid that people would forget me, or assume that if I wasn't seen, I was planning a bank heist.
From what I could tell, it was the villains who got to pick and choose their battles, until or unless the heroes could find their hideouts. So you heard a lot more about this or that villain raiding each other or robbing a store then you did about heroes acting that way, who you mostly saw pictures of patrolling.
But by Friday, after three days of patrolling up and down when I wasn't tracking down leads, I was starting to get the feeling that this was some kind of trick. Some time wasting scheme so that heroes couldn't do anything useful.
Sure, PR existed and whatever, but there had to be a better way than this. But I kept at least a little of it up in case it was important, but mostly I focused on the Merchants.
This map looked a little like a web made by a spider that had been fed drugs. Clumps here and there, and long trails of crackhouses and safehouses that they'd clearly mostly forgotten about, stretching farther and wider than the E88, but existing in the margins.
And it was clear to me now that they had some sort of Tinker messing with their product, making it stronger, more powerful. I'd felt said person, and I'd felt that Lisa had gone down and talked to him. That was enough evidence that I should confront her, though I wasn't sure if I could stand the kinds of lies and manipulations she'd probably pull out.
I liked her, but that didn't mean she wasn't someone a little like Emma, someone who was very handy with making other people do things.
Still, I should at least confront her… but not yet. I wanted to enjoy things.
Even school was going alright. The trio hadn't suddenly grown a conscience, they weren't actually non-horrible people now, but I could cope with it a little better. Their words still hurt, though, and yet when they spread a rumor that was true, I could almost scoff at it. Almost.
I wasn't exactly regretting my choices yet, and things with Rachel seemed both normal and not, now. Now when I saw her look at me, I imagined I saw the interest she'd had in me. And when she looked, I felt like there might be actually something that she was looking at. Something worth looking at.
It was an addictive sort of feeling, in a way.
********
I stood against the wall of the alley, holding out the cell-phone. It was a very cruddy camera, in a model that was barely new enough for it, but it'd do. I stood back a little, holding it out, and then snapped a photo of my visage. My mask didn't show anything of my face, but it showed my costume, and that was pretty hard to fake, at least for no reason at all. Once I posted this, that was proof that I was a real, registered cape.
That I was who I said I was, and that I was a hero.
So, that was one thing out of the way.
*******
Friday evening:
"Hey, Rachel," I said, as she was looking over a book I'd gotten her. It was part of the idea to help her read a little better, though she was reluctant to admit mistakes. I'd noticed that, or at least, she didn't like admitting how many words tripped her up.
"Yes?"
"If I made clothes for you, would you wear them?" I asked, trying to phrase it innocently.
"What?" she asked, sounding confused.
"I made my own costume, did you know that?"
"No," Rachel admitted.
"With spider silk. It's actually pretty strong. It's supposed to be able to at least make bullets hurt less," I said. "I could make you a jacket like that, or under-armor. Or perhaps padding to keep from chafing while you're riding Brutus or one of the other dogs."
"Oh?" she asked, and I took the neutral tone as an encouragement to go on.
"I'm not exactly a fashionista, but I could also… make other garments."
"Other garments? Do you want me in some kinda dress or something?" she asked, eyes narrowed, as if she had figured out my grand and evil plot.
Or as if she was going to try to find a way to avoid ever wearing a dress.
To be fair, I couldn't imagine Rachel in a dress. It just didn't fit. It didn't compute, and if I thought about it too long, my brain would probably shut down. Besides, she looked just fine the way she dressed now. More than fine, actually.
"N-no. I meant, well. You know they're talking about using them for soldiers, so it's not weird."
"Using what?"
"Um. Spider silk underwear."
Rachel let out a laugh, and then looked at me for a moment, her hand reaching out to brush against my shoulder. "Why?"
"Well, it's harder to tear, and stronger and more durable. Plus, it doesn't melt as easily, and if there's a wound there, the silk threads don't get caught in the wound," I said.
Rachel was just staring at me. Then she nodded, "Sure."
"Really?"
"Why not?" she asked, rather firmly. "If they're not frilly and shit."
"They won't be. I'm not even sure how I could do frills, and you don't seem like the kind of person that likes frills. On you, or anyone else."
"Yeah," Rachel said, and she leaned in and looked like she was about to kiss me.
"I'm still learning these things," I admitted. "About what you like and don't like."
She shrugged. "Bodies," she said, as if it were that simple. But then again, she'd been the one to make the first move, and without her words, I wouldn't have realized things quite so quickly, so maybe it was that simple. It wasn't as if I was attached to the deep aesthetic meaning of clothes, so if she saw them just as something to cover the body, that made sense.
"So, I'd need to measure you," I admitted. "So I knew how to fit it. But…"
I didn't know how to say that I didn't know how I'd stand seeing her in clothes that I made, and that this was a good thing, the inability to stand the image. I definitely didn't know how to explain it without coming off as creepy and weird.
"I get it." Rachel frowned, looking at me, "I think?"
"So, I brought a tape measure if you wanted to--"
She leaned in, and I saw the kiss coming, and kissed her back.
********
We had sex for a second time. I enjoyed it.
We didn't actually wind up measuring her on Friday, actually.
I didn't really mind.
A part of me whispered that this wasn't right, that this was too hasty and, just as importantly, that I shouldn't already be ready for more. That it wasn't normal to feel desire this strong and this soon after 'fulfilling' it. But I ignored it, and was glad of it.
Another part of me, far more persuasive, thought something as I lay, my body entwined in hers, my head on her shoulder. I couldn't stay for long, perhaps thirty or forty minutes at most like this, and even then I'm sure that Dad would freak out.
I thought that I'd love to sleep with her. Warmth against warmth, just laying there, exhausted and tuckered out.
Heck, sex wasn't even needed. Just imagining… but it wasn't something that could be done, not really. Not when I had to be home at some point in time. But when I stared up at the makeshift roof, I thought that this was a bad thing.
I wanted to change it.
I knew I would do this again, and again and again. I wanted to date her, to be her girlfriend, which of course also meant that she was my girlfriend too.
I just needed to figure out how to do it.
That was all.
*******
On Saturday, I got a call from Lisa, early in the morning as I was headed for Rachel's.
I wasn't sure about answering it, but I decided on it after a long moment of hesitation. So I slowed down, my heart racing from the jogging I'd done, and answered. "Hello?"
"Hey, Taylor, how's it going?"
"Fine. What is it you want?" I asked.
"Well, I want to hang out with you sometime, maybe go shopping."
"Clothes are just things you wear," I said, "but sure."
"Ah," Lisa said, and I had no idea what the 'ah' was for, and it annoyed me a little. I wanted to be at Rachel's right now. "So, it went well?"
"Oh. You can tell that over the phone?"
"A little, yeah," Lisa said. "Anyways, what I had to give you was pretty simple. Taking down those E88 people is a big deal, and I thought I'd buy you a smart phone, just a cheap one, so that you could do some of the tracking in the field if you decided to go after anyone else."
I frowned. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about it. Anything she bought was to some extent blood money, but then, so was what Rachel got, even if it was just food. So maybe I could take it without it being tainted?
But I wanted to press something else while I was here, and maybe it'd make her think twice about thinking she could buy me. I let out a breath, and said, "Go after anyone else? Except the Merchants, right?"
"What?"
"I saw you moving down to talk to someone that was probably a Merchant, back during our first fight together. Don't deny it. I bet it's the new chemical or drug Tinker that's putting out that new product," I said. My voice was a little bit of a growl, but now that I was actually thinking about it, I was even more frustrated than I thought I'd be.
"Oh. Ah, yes, bugs. I was warning them to get away. You can go after the Merchants if you want, I was just providing a warning…"
"And they didn't attack you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes even though she couldn't see it. "I'm not sure if that actually makes sense. Merchants are violent, and you just showed up out of nowhere."
"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said I was going through a tunnel and was breaking up," Lisa said, as if she was trying to sound more lighthearted than she was.
"No. I wouldn't," I said.
"Okay, well, I have a contact in the Merchants. Someone who knows the Tinker. I used that to contact him, make sure he was on the same page. He's also someone I could use against them later on. You have to do that: have contacts, have allies and people you can rely on."
I found myself smiling in the sort of way Rachel might smile. "Ah. So, you're an evil mastermind in the making? That's supposed to make me trust you?"
"People have to survive."
"That's what you're doing it for? To survive?" I asked. "Rachel, she does shit for survival. I can tell it. You? You seem to enjoy it."
"You have to eat to live, but you can enjoy food," Lisa said, her words a little quieter, as if she were withdrawing away from the conversation.
I wanted to press on further, because if the past few weeks had taught me anything, it was that you couldn't let an enemy get up, and if Lisa was perhaps a friend, she was also a potential enemy.
Maybe even more than potential.
So. "That's not the same at all. Everyone needs food, but you're…"
"What? We've done a few robberies, but not recently. Recently we've been just fighting Nazis."
"How? How are you getting money, if not through robbery," I said.
"The E88 has enemies, and we have been taking a little of what the E88 drops."
"Drugs?"
"No. Arachne, it's just money. Rachel's taking her cut too. We do jobs, we get money, and we don't have to be your enemy. I know that some of us aren't, and even Regent isn't as bad as he came off…"
"If you say so," I said, "...then I'll hear."
Lisa didn't ask the obvious question, of whether or not I'd listen, and she sighed. "Do you still want the phone? And we should hang out. Because I want to…"
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing. I just don't want to see you going it alone without any advice. I know a lot that could be helpful if you were going to be an independent hero."
"Oh?" I asked.
"Want to go shopping with me on Sunday? We can go somewhere other than the mall. Like the boardwalk."
"You know what, yes. And then I can ask you more about this… or what you're willing to share," I said.
"Ah. Well, fair enough," Lisa said, and I could imagine her shrugging. She clearly thought it was worth it, or perhaps that I'd not follow up.
But I definitely intended to.
********
Sometimes I didn't know what to expect when I went to Rachel's. I'd thought that today would involve video games, and it did. And I was working with Rachel on the reading, and I finally found a few poems she liked, if only because they were short.
And there were other interests I could inculcate in her, given time. Movies and music and the like. If I had a smart-phone, I could even just show some off to her without having to buy anything, though I had no idea what her tastes were in that respect. I also didn't know how to learn all of that kind of thing about her without just asking.
...so maybe I should just ask.
But two things distracted me from this, at least for a little while.
First was a show of trust that I found a little shocking. After we'd been messing around for a while, and of course after I'd helped her with the dogs, she said, "Hey, Taylor."
Honestly by this point helping out with the dogs felt less like a task and more something that was part of the routine. I enjoyed it, and I felt an odd sense of ownership over them. I knew their names, I knew what they acted like when they were angry and happy and sick. I certainly didn't know them as well as Rachel did, but that was a minor detail compared to how I was used to the smell of dogs, how I knew their behavior, and how I had favorites. Milk and Bullet, for instance.
"What?" I asked, kneeling next to Milk, whose belly I was rubbing.
"Gotta show you something."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Jus' follow me."
I did, not sure what I was seeing. In the back room, there was all of the normal stuff, though I saw that she had two or three dummies now. Were they for training?
But Rachel kept on walking and moved towards a tile in the corner, and then knelt down and pulled it up.
I blinked, surprised, but scooted closer, and then saw a box, amid the dirt. Actually, there were bugs down here, and I'd felt them, but I hadn't put two and two together, hadn't controlled the worms to crawl over this large, orange tackle-box.
She unlatched it and opened it up.
Inside there was money. A lot of money, by my standards. It was all in cash, except for a few coins, here and there. Twenties, tens, and hundreds all mixed together in a slurry. "What?" I asked.
"Casino job. And other shit," Rachel said.
"How much is in there?" I asked, staring at it, shocked.
"Last time I counted, about… six thousand or something?" Rachel frowned, looking at me, but I didn't see that same suspicion before. "I might have counted some of it twice."
Before, she'd been afraid I'd make fun of her for that, and of course, before she didn't trust me enough to show me where she kept her stash.
"Oh, well, I could help you count it, if you wanted."
"Thanks," Rachel said.
"Though, why did you show me this?"
"In case you ever need money," Rachel said.
I blushed. It was just something about how simply she said it.
"Just write the amount on a little piece of paper and leave it, and shit. Just so that I know," Rachel said with a shrug.
Oh, so she wasn't that crazy. She was still going to keep track of it, but the offer was both generous and also one I wasn't sure I could take her up on. Besides it feeling weird, the idea of relying on her for money, even though I was just about broke by this point, there was the fact that it was all dirty money.
Even if the Casino was a front, it was still all illegal. But that was a lot of money down there.
"Got a whole bunch more coming. Don't spend it on nothing, so if you need a little…"
"A bunch more coming?"
"Lisa said," Rachel said, but in a way that told me that if Lisa said the sky was blue, Rachel would go out and check.
"Well, I can ask her about it, maybe," I said, with a shrug. "Thanks, though! I mean, the trust and all…"
"There's something else."
"Oh?"
*******
I stared at the dummy, and then at Brutus.
"You gotta tell them," Rachel said. "Give them an order like you mean it. Then you praise them when they do what you want."
"I…" I glanced between the dummy and Brutus, who was currently almost up to my shoulder. "Brutus! Hurt!"
The dog sprung forward and batted the dummy with his shoulder, almost delicately. It half flew across the room, and he pounced. I noticed that he wasn't biting, just pawing hard and pushing.
"Brutus!" I said, "Hurt super!"
It was a command she had, for when she wanted to hurt someone who didn't have to be gone easy on, the way Brutus was now when he was that big.
Brutus bit down and started to shake his head back and forth. Of course, sometimes he 'hurt super' even when he wasn't ordered to, but still.
I stared as stuffing flew out.
"Now do it," Rachel said, crossing her arms.
"I…"
She was looking at me with an intense look that made my knees weak. I was sweating. I shouldn't care, but--
But I shouldn't care. I did worse with my bugs, and the time might come when I had to do it.
And she wanted me to be able to do this. She was trusting me with being able to give her own dogs orders and rewards. I knew that this was a big thing for her.
So I said, loud and clear, "Brutus, kill."
There was almost nothing left of the dummy once Brutus was done with it, though I can't imagine it tasted good. But he was an obedient dog, no traitor at all, and so he did what he was told, and then returned to me to lick me with his huge, monster-dog tongue and wag his shiny, horrible looking tail.
It made it hard not to smile when I saw all of that, even though I was training myself to express myself in other ways around her.
"Hey, Rachel. Could I grab a twenty and go get us some lunch?" I asked.
"Sure. Why you asking?"
"Well, just wanted to talk to you, get to know you a little more. And I figured we could have lunch. Maybe in for now, but out eventually."
There was a word for going to lunch with someone you were having sex with. A date. I wasn't going to say it outright, since I knew she didn't like me like that, not really. If she did, she'd be blunt. "Wanna date" seemed something she'd say, or at least I couldn't see why she wouldn't say that.
But if I eased her into it…
It was an idea. I could be underhanded if I wanted to. And if it didn't work out, I wouldn't be putting myself at any risk. Because I didn't actively state anything, she wouldn't be able to actively shoot me down.
We could continue to have sex.
It was probably a sign that something was wrong with me, but if that's all it was, even if there was no hope of it being more… I'd take it.
"Why not," Rachel said.
******
We ate sandwiches from a shop a little down the way, still hot. She seemed to be more careful with her food now than before, but when she did get something on her lips, it made me want to wipe it off.
I kept on watching her the whole time. I knew that this had to die down, eventually, the awareness of one another in this kind of way. Or else how did couples do anything? If they saw someone's lips and their mind dragged them back to the things those lips had done, the kisses and the nibbles.
Was licking someone's face something that only happened in movies? Would she think it was gross? Why was I thinking about it so much.
"So, what do you wanna know?"
"What movies do you like? Music?"
"Uh," Rachel said, leaning back. "Like Rock, I guess? Or…"
She frowned a little. "Quiet shit. Relaxing."
"Ah," I said. "Well, I'm more of a pop sort of person. I could find some music on my phone, see what we like, on top of the reading. I have a few ideas about the kinds of things you'd like. And movies?"
"Action movies, maybe?" she asked, a little skeptically.
If she thought this was a little shallow, it was, but better to be slightly shallow than to not know as much about her as I could. That was how you forged relationships, or at least how I saw them forged.
"So, I like green and I jog, I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, and video games as you know, but my Mom got me into foreign films and books that are a little different from that," I said. "If you ever wanted to watch a movie or something, we could. Together, I mean. Nobody's going to check or notice that you're Bitch."
"Maybe," she said, and then after a moment her lips pursed slightly, as if now she was actually considering it. "Why not?"
"Good, good," I said. "So, I know you like Greek, and a lot of meat, but what about other things? Anything else you wanna share?"
"Well, uh, I do the weightlifting," Rachel said, sounding like she was flailing to find something to say.
Which was a new thing, or rather, it was a new thing that I could see it. From the look on her face, she did want to engage with me in this, but she didn't really know how.
"Oh? Is that just to get enough strength to handle the dogs?"
Rachel hesitated, and then with what I understood was a mental shrug, she said, "Uh… not just."
"Not just?" I asked.
Oh. My. God. (Yes, I knew it made me sound like a valley girl.)
Rachel was blushing a bit. "Also, just. Like how…"
She gestured vaguely.
For the first time I'd seen, she was actually hesitating.
"How it looks? Well so do I," I admitted, reaching a hand out to feel her muscles. I liked that, I liked the hardness of them, I just… well. It wasn't something I would have expected, considering the few past crushes I could point to as far as other women went, but there it was.
Rachel looked both pleased and like she might just sink into the floor, while I thought about that. So, she lifted weights because she liked how it looked? Or maybe because she thought others would like how it looked? She really didn't need it, and at most it probably just slightly increased her definition or whatnot, since hauling around those dogs would probably have done, and probably had done, most of the work.
It was something personal, in a way. I wondered, she said she was gay, had she been… I don't know.
I did remember that she hadn't had weights here, and then she'd brought them in from her apartment? So, what? Had she wanted them close at hand?
Right after she met me.
"Oh," Rachel said.
"Yeah. I mean, you're not…" I trailed off, since I realized that what I was saying was a little too close. I was going to say she wasn't the sort to have doubts. "Anyways, so, movies, music, there's plenty we could do together."
Rachel nodded. "What else you wanna know?"
"Oh! Your measurements. I'll need them for the clothes I'm making. It'll be a few days, or more, until they're done, though," I said.
"Dunno," Rachel said.
"Huh?"
"Don't know them. I'm not exactly stepping on a scale every day or any of that shit," Rachel said, and that was the aggression and don't-care attitude I'd expected. It was odd, to see her at once so cavalier about how she looked, and yet apparently uncertain enough that she lifted weights for no real reason at all. Or at least, it didn't help her any, if her goal was just to be strong enough to handle her dogs.
It was an odd contrast, a little like how she didn't care about clothes, yet she'd been careful with them before. Sort of.
I wondered what she liked about me. I no longer doubted that she was attracted to me, but there was the question of details, of specifics, of all sorts of other things.
"Well, then I'll just have to measure you," I said, with a shrug. "Shouldn't take too long."
I had looked up how to do so, in case she didn't know, though now it felt a little weird.
Still, I got out my measuring tape and got to work. A few more days and the clothes would be done.
*******
Later that day, I returned home, having taken a bit longer than expected to get back. Probably something to do with the makeout session we'd had. I'd never really gotten how other girls were quite so boy crazy, or person crazy in general, but I got it now.
I opened the door and glanced at the table in the living room. Dad was sitting and watching television, but what I noticed most of all was that, unlike normally, there were two empty beer cars sitting on the table.
"Taylor," Dad said, his voice firm, as if he were working his way up to saying something.
"Yes?" I asked, not asking how he knew I was there. The TV was blaring, but he must have been listening for me.
"...Nothing, nevermind."
"Okay then," I said, and I realized it for what it was, realized it for the same thing that had held me back.
Perhaps I'd been my father's daughter when I'd held back out of fear, out of cowardice, out of worry about what a single wrong word could do to something I valued so much, her friendship.
"I'll be upstairs in my room," I said.
Maybe I didn't want to have this conversation either.
******
A/N: And on that cheery note, we finish the first update of the new whatnot!
Edit: Thanks to @NemoMarx.
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- Location
- italy
"You have been using a condom, right?"
"But...but we're both girls!!"
"GIRL CONDOMS! Have you been using them?"
Edit: yes, I know dental dams and vaginal condoms exist. I doubt either Taylor or Danny do, however.
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- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel like Annette would have been familiar with a lot of things.
Someone other than Taylor being embarrassed?
eternal-potato
He who vegetates
- Location
- Moscow
How lewd!
And this is absolutely adorable.
eternal-potato
He who vegetates
- Location
- Moscow
How lewd!
And this is absolutely adorable.
Mechanical
Initiate Action: Buzz
- Location
- Somewhere Strange
The gist seems to me to be that Bitch brought her weights down to work out to appeal to Taylor more.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Would she ever do that?